Todo es extremo

Okay this is a long one… so heres the summary and a link to a video one of my friends made about our week adventure.

·         Baños was full of extreme sports and scared girls

·         Carnaval is a terrible holiday and no one should ever be allowed to throw eggs and smelly foam at innocent people in the streets.

·         Ecuador should not be allowed to operate roller coasters.

·         Evacuation buses are full of screaming children and sweaty people.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=10150108801127055&comments&notif_t=video_comment_tagged

But for the longer version…

Well it’s been an extreme week here to say the least… But I am safe despite the tsunami panic. My friends and I were evacuated from Puerto Lopez, Ecuador Friday morning to return to Guayaquil and our families. We sat on a packed and sweaty bus without air conditioning for four hours when we supposed to be laying on the white sandy beach of Los Frailes… But I know that I can’t complain that my vacation was ended early when I think about what happened to all those people in Japan. Thankfully the tsunami ended up only causing minor damage to Ecuador. I think some boats were wrecked and some minimal shore damage, but it could have been a lot worse.

But let’s rewind. I have a lot to tell about my exciting vacation from my vacation. We left Friday morning around 11 since I finally bullied (I mean sweet talked) one of the other girls in to skipping her Friday class so we didn’t have to wait until the afternoon. Which turned out to be a very good thing since it still took us until almost 8 or so to get to Baños. There were no direct buses left so we had to take two and it was a mess trying to navigate the second terminal… but we made it eventually. When we finally checked in to our hostel on Friday there were already some warning signs of what was to come. People walking up and down the streets were already armed and prepared with bottles of spray foam to launch at your face whenever you weren’t paying attention. But that was just childs play to what was to come.

We were all too tired from traveling to go out that night after dinner so we just hung out in the hotel. There were people dancing, screaming, playing music, and throwing water in the streets all night long. They were so loud that they even woke me up which is a very rare thing.

Our adventure tour started Saturday morning at nine with a guided tour through the city of Baños. We checked out a museum and this pretty cool church that they light up neon purple at night, and then saw the market, the waterfalls, and the thermal baths

Random indigenous person on the side of the street.

The thermal baths that are famous in Baños. Not sure how I feel about public bathing. Not to mention the water is tinted this weird nasty looking color because of all the minerals.

Going back to the highlands means going back to guinea pig land too. This was a picture of the little guys they were roasting on the side of the street. Kind of looks like the raw ones are still yelling to escape... ick.

This is the inside of the church we went to. The side of the church was lined with paintings and stories about how the water in Baños had healed a bunch of saints in the past from all sorts of diseases and injuries.

 Baños is a huge producer of sugar cane so there were a bunch of people making this candy that’s kind of like taffy.

They also sell pure sugar cane that you can suck on too which is pretty good. Then our guide had one of the stands prepare us a specialty drink called “sanduiche.” I have no idea why it’s called that since it translates in to “sandwhich.” But anyway it’s made with pure sugar cane and alcohol. They actually took fresh sugar cane and ran it through a press right in front of us to get the water for the drink. It wasn’t too bad but it was a little much for 11 in the morning… Anyway we spent the rest of the day just walking around town and I bullied (I mean sweetly convinced) everyone in to signing up for a white water rafting trip the next day. We were supposed to go on a chiva that night, which is a double decker bus, to see the rest of the city and to drive up to a lookout point, but we missed the bus because a few of the Ecuadorians don’t understand the concept of being on time and made us all late. But that’s how things go here. I don’t think they know the concept of the word hurry.

We went out to a karaoke bar that night and had a good mix of Spanish and English singing going on. We even had my favorite Korean friend singing Living la Viva Loca by Ricky Martin. After that we went out dancing with everyone. They were still throwing spray and foam all over the place inside the discoteca too so the floor was really wet… our poor Korean kid ended up falling during his karate style dancing and hitting his head on the floor… He was fine but very dramatic about the whole experience. He wasn’t making any comprehendible sense in English, Spanish, or Korean, so we ended up having to take him to the doctor to make sure he didn’t have a concussion and nothing was broken. The doctor pretty much laughed and said everything was fine he was just extremely chuchaqui (hung-over) and his face was just bruised. He spent the next day and a half in his room with ice on his face and a very swollen cheek (and I assume a raging head ache). I would have liked to hear him try to explain what happened to his host family when he went back home…

The rest of the week consisted of an array of adventures. Sunday we went canyoning in the morning. We got dressed up in wet suits that made me feel like one of Charlie’s angels and then we literally walked backwards down waterfalls and suspended down huge cliffs. I thought it was awesome… I don’t think some of the other girls appreciated the idea quite as much. Apparently they had no idea what they were getting in to when I told them the tour included canyoning. One of them didn’t even realize the tour was in the mountains… she thought it was on the beach. But that’s what they get for not doing their research. Anyway we rushed back that afternoon to scarf down some lunch and head out for rafting. Only one out of four Ecuadorians went rafting with us because all the other ones said they don’t like to be rushed after lunch…

And then we spent the rest of the day visiting some indigenous people where I got my face painted with achiote, one of the typical plants. They also showed us how to use their blow weapons which are traditionally loaded with poisonous darts. Then we went hiking up a random cliff on the side of the road where there was barely any path. I thought I was going to end up falling and rolling down the cliff a few times. One of the girls spent the whole way up cursing us all and mumbling about how much she hates hiking. But when we finally made it to the top it was worth the effort. We were met with an amazing view of the Ecuadorian jungle and you could make out exactly where the Sierra started. After the hike we finally got to eat lunch… a specialty fish dish from the jungle that is cooked in plantain leafs. I was excited about until I opened up my plantain leaf and realized that the fish still had its head and was staring at me… seriously I don’t know why these people cant learn to filet.

After lunch we went on a really cool hike through the jungle where we saw all sorts of cool plants. I was deemed the princess of the group by our guide and he made me a crown out of the same leaves they use to make Panama hats (which are actually from Ecuador if you didn’t know). We rubbed exfoliating clay on our faces and found the plant that they make immodium from. When we got to the end of the hike there was an amazing waterfall that we went swimming in. The water was freezing because it comes down from the mountains, but it was worth that little bit of suffering to say that I had been swimming in a waterfall in the Amazon rainforest.

On the hike back we got to pretend like we were Tarzan and swing from some cool tree vines which was also pretty exciting.

We finished up our tour through Baños on Tuesday with a morning of canopy, which is just a monster zip line through the jungle. I didn’t realize quite how sketchy the little zip line hut was until I saw the pictures later. But it was a lot of fun… we got to pretend like we were superman and fly across on our bellies. And I didn’t even yell at the girl that was crying and saying she was going to die once. I think there are probably a few of the internationals that will never go on another vacation that I plan again. I think it was too much adventure for some. But at least they cant say that they didn’t do something new in Ecuador J

Tuesday afternoon was when things got really crazy with Carnaval. Technically the holiday only lasts Monday and Tuesday but people get too excited and start early. At first it didn’t seem too bad because it was just spray foam. But by Tuesday people broke out huge water canons, eggs, flour, dyed water, water balloons, spray, foam, and whatever else you can think of and were throwing them everywhere. It was almost impossible to walk down the street without getting caught in a water fight. Not even the people sitting on the side of the streets in the restaurants were safe. In fact, even the shop owners were standing outside holding cans in either defense or to spray anyone that didn’t want to stop in their store.

At that point we had seen most of what there was to see in Baños and had enough of the mosquitos from the jungle so we took off for the beach at six o clock the next morning. After spending over 13 hours in bus we finally made it across the country to a beach town called Manta. Turned out Manta was ugly and smelled bad and the hostal that our taxi drive recommended was in a dangerous part of town… so we only spent the night and we left the next morning on another three hour bus to get to Puerto Lopez. Which turned out to be an excellent decision. The beach was amazingly beautiful and we spent a great day relaxing and swimming… although I did get bit by some random fish. We also met some cool German people that were volunteering as well as an American tour guide who almost wet his pants because he was so excited to find someone in the small town that spoke English. Another exchange student friend from Guayaquil met us at the beach as well. He is from France and was showing his father around the country that week. So we ended up with two German guys who spoke some spanish, two french men, one of which spoke nothing but french, some americans, a guy from sweden who only spoke english, a canadian and a mexican.. We spent the whole night switching between languages with a good amount of charades mixed in.

We had grand plans of relaxing on a private beach about fifteen minutes away the whole next day… but they got shot down almost immediately when we got a phone call from a friend at 8 in the morning telling us about the earth quake in japan and to get out as soon as possible. We were grumpy and I demanded breakfast first, but afterwards we luckily found a seated bus ticket for only five dollars. They were evacuating the entire coast. The streets were closed down and only allowing outbound traffic and buses were only running to Guayaquil. The bus was completely full including people that had to stand the entire four hours. Most of the bus was full of moms and kids, Im guessing the dads stayed behind to secure the houses.

What I found the most interesting about the whole experience was that on the news they were claiming that the government was providing free buses and that police would be out in full force to offer assistance, but from what I saw none of that was happening. On the contrary on the bus where we were the company just kept increasing the cost by the minute. We paid five but I know some paid six and then the price when up again when the company had to be bribed to allow the people on that were going to stand up. I didn’t see a single police officer anywhere. When we drove past a lot of the smaller beach towns along the way there were still boats out in the water and people on the beach, almost as if they still didn’t know about what was happening.

But the tsunami turned out more or less fine and we all made it home safe. Now Im just relaxing back in Guayaquil until classes start again on Monday…

Rafting was another interesting adventure. The guide was attempting to explain everything in Spanglish. He decided to use me as the guinea pig for all his explanations… which ended up with him catapulting me by my life jacked from the ground in to the inside of the boat in order to demonstrate how to rescue someone from falling out. But I guess the demonstration proved useful since one of the crying girls actually did end up falling out in the rapids. And then yet another girl that was still in the boat started crying too because she saw the first girl fall out and thought she was going to die… But in the midst of all the tears she ended up getting rescued and everything was fine. I think she was about ready to kill all of us for convincing her to get on the boat. She told me it was the most traumatizing experience of her life and she would never be caught dead sitting in other raft again. Even I have to admit it was a little scary. There was a moment or two when I found myself barely hanging on to the boat, one particular time I was hanging in midair with my feet above my head before my friend Alberto grabbed on to my foot with a death grip and yanked me back in. But all in all I thought it was pretty fun, except for the fact that it was a little cold since we were in the mountains and  it started raining halfway through. We spent Monday on a jungle expedition. We started with an air ride across a valley to see some cool twin waterfalls.

Then we went to a really cool monkey reserve where the monkeys just ran around everywhere. I was beyond excited since Ive always wanted a pet monkey. I got to hold a baby one and feed it guayaba and I got to see someone else get their camera robbed by another monkey. It was awesome.